Speaker 1: This is the case of Marion Barter, a mother teacher
Speaker 1: friend missing for twenty five years.
Speaker 2: You know, I know something that she was going to vanish,
Speaker 2: that's for sure.
Speaker 1: The bizarre circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if it was intentional or there's something
Speaker 3: more foul afoot.
Speaker 4: If you could imagine a teacher coming straight from say
Speaker 4: little house on the prairie to the eighties, that was
Speaker 4: Marian Barter.
Speaker 5: What I say, whether you find Marian Barter dead or alive,
Speaker 5: I honestly believe somebody has that key piece of information.
Speaker 1: And the relentless quest of a daughter to find her mum.
Speaker 5: Something had happened, Something has happened to make her leave.
Speaker 1: I am one hundred percent sure, one hundred percent sure
Speaker 1: that somebody knows something. This is The Lady Vanishers the
Speaker 1: catch Up series, Episode one. Hi, I'm Alison Sandy.
Speaker 6: And I'm Brian Seymour.
Speaker 1: We're only weeks away from November thirty, the date when
Speaker 1: New South Wales State Coroner Teresa O'Sullivan is due to
Speaker 1: hand down her findings into the disappearance of Marian Barter.
Speaker 1: We began this podcast on April one, twenty nineteen, with
Speaker 1: the aim of sharing Marian's story and the hope of
Speaker 1: trying to help her daughter Sally, find some sort of answers.
Speaker 1: Back then, we had no idea what lay ahead, what
Speaker 1: we discover, or just how many people from all all
Speaker 1: around the world would support Sally's quest.
Speaker 6: Would you believe? We'd originally slated only about eight episodes,
Speaker 6: now forty plus episodes on Here we Are. We're aware
Speaker 6: that forty episodes is a lot to binge. You'd need
Speaker 6: to set aside a full working week to do it.
Speaker 6: So for our faithful long time followers who like a
Speaker 6: refresher and for newer listeners who want to get their
Speaker 6: head around this extraordinary story, the next few episodes offer
Speaker 6: a condensed version of the events that shaped our podcast
Speaker 6: since twenty nineteen. There will be segments of the original
Speaker 6: episodes as well as new commentary, but we'll be eliminating
Speaker 6: the red herrings and focusing on the clues and information
Speaker 6: that were key to bringing us to where we are today. Obviously,
Speaker 6: even though these are compilation episodes, there is still a
Speaker 6: lot of information to get through, so they'll be pretty lengthy. Now,
Speaker 6: sit back, as we rewind to the beginning of the
Speaker 6: Lady Vanishes.
Speaker 1: Episode one introduced us to Marian Barter through the eyes
Speaker 1: of her daughter, Sally Layden, who at that stage had
Speaker 1: spent the best part of twenty two years wondering why
Speaker 1: her mother had disappeared after taking off on an overseas
Speaker 1: trip in nineteen ninety seven. She had mixed emotions. Was
Speaker 1: her mother really missing? Why didn't authorities take the case seriously.
Speaker 6: At the time of her disappearance, Marion Barter was fifty
Speaker 6: one years old. She was average height, slim, with dark,
Speaker 6: wavy shoulder leaked hair, fair skin, and hazel eyes. She
Speaker 6: was very feminine and some a little eccentric. Marian loved
Speaker 6: floral's and was quite particular about the way she dressed.
Speaker 6: Her home was furnished with antiques and expensive artworks. In photos,
Speaker 6: you notice her smile is very thin, almost reminiscent of
Speaker 6: the Mona Lisa, and that she seems to be communicating
Speaker 6: something or she could be simply thinking of nothing. She
Speaker 6: did like to be loved and to be in love.
Speaker 6: She was married and divorced three times, and hence was
Speaker 6: at various times known by four different names. Marian Wilson
Speaker 6: was her maiden name. Her first marriage was to Australian
Speaker 6: soccer star Johnny.
Speaker 7: Warren attack through Johnny Warren number ten.
Speaker 6: Coming up to be. Her third marriage was to Ray
Speaker 6: Barter in between husband Stuart Brown. He was the father
Speaker 6: of her two children, Sally and Owen. They were twenty
Speaker 6: four and twenty three years old when their mum vanished.
Speaker 6: Certainly is now forty five a married mother of three.
Speaker 3: And how close were you with your mother?
Speaker 6: I know it's an odd question, but some people aren't
Speaker 6: close with their father or mother.
Speaker 3: How close were you with Sharon?
Speaker 5: I think I would say we had a pretty normal,
Speaker 5: normal relationship. I think if you asked me to compare
Speaker 5: my relationship with my children, I'm closer to my children
Speaker 5: than my mum was to me. But I also have
Speaker 5: reflected on that as a child and think that I
Speaker 5: wanted my life to be different with my kids. I
Speaker 5: wanted to be a different parent. I wanted to go
Speaker 5: and watch them at their football games, and watch them
Speaker 5: do their gymnastics and be there for them every step
Speaker 5: of the way. So I've actually probably go the opposite
Speaker 5: end of the tunnel where I'm probably too too motherly.
Speaker 8: Big boys, that was.
Speaker 3: A bear.
Speaker 6: That was Marian was also a teacher, a highly regarded one.
Speaker 6: She trained at Balmain Teachers College in Sydney and was
Speaker 6: named Queensland's Teacher of Excellence in nineteen ninety six. Teaching
Speaker 6: was her passion, loved.
Speaker 5: It and anyone that you talk to will tell you that,
Speaker 5: you know, what a great teacher she was. Somewhat to
Speaker 5: Owen and my detriment, I think because she was so
Speaker 5: involved in teaching that she was more about her students
Speaker 5: than she was about us sometimes, which I think is
Speaker 5: pretty standard for a teacher who loves their job, I
Speaker 5: think from what I've seen over the years. But she
Speaker 5: was very well loved. She's godmother to hundreds of children,
Speaker 5: and you know, growing up in primary school.
Speaker 9: She was a teacher at our where I went to.
Speaker 5: Primary school as well, and quite often if we weren't
Speaker 5: staying back till five o'clock getting ready for the next
Speaker 5: day in the classroom, we were invited to somebody's house
Speaker 5: for afternoon tea and hanging out with people. And I
Speaker 5: reconnected with all of those people on faith Book since
Speaker 5: they found out about mum, because it's actually been quite
Speaker 5: earth shattering for a lot of people to even consider
Speaker 5: that that would be something that would happen to her,
Speaker 5: and everyone has something really nice to say. I remember
Speaker 5: one boy once when I first started a Facebook page
Speaker 5: about mum being missing, and he came on and he
Speaker 5: said Missus Brown, who she was known in primary school.
Speaker 5: He's the same age as me, so we were in
Speaker 5: the same year together through primary school. And he said,
Speaker 5: she's the only person who's ever got me into a
Speaker 5: two two and because mum was very big on doing
Speaker 5: theater productions and things like that.
Speaker 9: In the school.
Speaker 5: And I think we're in the Nutcracker or something, and
Speaker 5: he had to wear a two two.
Speaker 9: And he's now about six foot tall and big, big guy.
Speaker 5: And yeah, so she had a lot of a lot
Speaker 5: of influence on a lot of people. Another girlfriend of
Speaker 5: mine who's the same year as me as well at primary,
Speaker 5: she's now in theater, and she actually posted something on
Speaker 5: the page and said, I always remember my parents telling
Speaker 5: me that year three was just a gap year for
Speaker 5: me because I was doing too much theater and too
Speaker 5: much drama with Missus Brown. But hence I am now
Speaker 5: in theater, and my whole motivation and my whole reason
Speaker 5: I'm in this career is based on my experiences with
Speaker 5: her from grade three, so she has touched a lot
Speaker 5: of people and it's a very sad, very sad situation.
Speaker 6: In nineteen ninety seven, Marian was teaching four and five
Speaker 6: year old boys at TSS, the Southport School, an exclusive
Speaker 6: all boys school on the Gold Coast. She said earlier
Speaker 6: that that sometimes felt like your mother spent more time
Speaker 6: and cared more about the boys she was raising in
Speaker 6: the school, and she did for their own children.
Speaker 5: Yeah, everyone loved her. Everyone wanted a piece of her.
Speaker 5: So she was always if we weren't at someone's house,
Speaker 5: as I said, for afternoon tea, she was staying back
Speaker 5: at class doing something for the kids for the next day.
Speaker 5: Or she had us in the holidays painting Beatrix Potter
Speaker 5: pictures of you know, missus Tiggywinkle on the windows, because
Speaker 5: that was the theme she was doing that that term.
Speaker 5: But she was all about school and all about the
Speaker 5: people at school and not always about oh and I
Speaker 5: as such. But didn't mean she was a bad parent,
Speaker 5: She just had a different way of parenting us.
Speaker 6: Marian abruptly resigned in the middle of the school year,
Speaker 6: an unusual move for a teacher is dedicated as herself.
Speaker 10: Sixteen June nineteen ninety seven. Dear Sir Madam, I wish
Speaker 10: to inform you of my resignation from the Southport School
Speaker 10: on Friday twentieth of June nineteen ninety seven. I'll be
Speaker 10: traveling overseas for an indefinite period and hopefully teaching in
Speaker 10: England and Europe. I'd like to renew my registration for
Speaker 10: nineteen ninety eight in advance and advise you of my
Speaker 10: forwarding address for future renewal should I need to do so. Yours, sincerely,
Speaker 10: Marian Barter.
Speaker 6: Something wasn't right.
Speaker 5: She'd just won their Teacher Award of Excellence for Queensland,
Speaker 5: so she was voted the best teacher in Queensland in
Speaker 5: nineteen ninety six, and it seemed that there was a
Speaker 5: little bit of a tall Poppy syndrome going on with
Speaker 5: the new teachers that had come in, where they were
Speaker 5: trying to knock her down a peg, is my take
Speaker 5: on it, from what she had told me. So I'd
Speaker 5: be over there for dinner and she'd be in tears
Speaker 5: telling me that these people had said horrible things about her,
Speaker 5: and she was not in a very happy place.
Speaker 3: What happened to you, mother, Sally.
Speaker 5: Briefly after the incident where I saw her at her
Speaker 5: home and she was in tears and had told me
Speaker 5: that information. She told me that she decided that she
Speaker 5: was going to go on a holiday for a year
Speaker 5: and wanted to go to the UK. She'd always wanted
Speaker 5: to go on the Orient Express was one of her
Speaker 5: bucket lists.
Speaker 9: And I was all for it. I was like, you
Speaker 9: know what, go for it.
Speaker 5: You single, You've got no ties here, you know, do
Speaker 5: whatever you need to do. And so she said, look,
Speaker 5: you know, I'm going to sell the house because the
Speaker 5: house is a three bedroom home, it's got swimming pool
Speaker 5: and no one's whim in. I'll sell the house when
Speaker 5: I come back. I'll just buy a unit at Main Beach.
Speaker 5: And so she then ended up giving us a little
Speaker 5: bit of her furniture. She had a lot of antiques.
Speaker 5: She said, I'll give that to you.
Speaker 9: Now so that you can have.
Speaker 5: It's going to be yours anyway one day, so you
Speaker 5: may as well have it now because when I get back,
Speaker 5: I'm going to downsize. And she put the rest of
Speaker 5: her things into storage and she quite openly said to me,
Speaker 5: if i'd get a job over there, She's very interested
Speaker 5: in the Steiner School program, and she had a lot
Speaker 5: of passion for being a bit eccentric, I guess in
Speaker 5: your teaching style. So if you were reading she was
Speaker 5: reading a book about going to the beach, she'd take
Speaker 5: the boys out of class and they'd walk down to
Speaker 5: the water's edge and play in the sand.
Speaker 9: And she was that kind of teacher.
Speaker 5: So she was very interested in Steiner and had openly
Speaker 5: said to me, if I don't come back and get
Speaker 5: a job over there, you can just send my things
Speaker 5: over for me. And we were very open and happy
Speaker 5: for her to do that. It wasn't like it was like, oh,
Speaker 5: you're not allowed to go, you can't go. We were like, sure,
Speaker 5: no problem.
Speaker 6: Within weeks, she'd sold her home at a loss of
Speaker 6: fifteen thousand dollars. She'd bought the property for one hundred
Speaker 6: and eighty thousand dollars in nineteen ninety four, but let
Speaker 6: it go for one hundred and sixty five thousand. It
Speaker 6: seemed like she was in a hurry. When Sally's then
Speaker 6: boyfriend Chris Laden was helping Marian to pack up her home,
Speaker 6: she suddenly turned on him before she left. There are
Speaker 6: a couple of odd things that you've now in hindsight
Speaker 6: realized seemed very odd, particularly one night he spotted her
Speaker 6: filling up at the petrol bowser.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what happened?
Speaker 5: So I was at Taife and my husband who we
Speaker 5: were married at that time, but Chris was helping mum
Speaker 5: pack up the house. So she'd already sold the house
Speaker 5: and was packing her things and putting them in the
Speaker 5: shipping container. And at about eight thirty that night, she
Speaker 5: kind of panicked and said, oh, what's the time to Chris,
Speaker 5: and he said it's take thirty and she said, well
Speaker 5: you need to go. You just drop what you're doing now.
Speaker 5: I need you to go, and was quite abrupt.
Speaker 9: And anyway, he came and got me at nine.
Speaker 5: O'clock when I finished, which I typically didn't on this
Speaker 5: night and we would always stop at the McDonald's local
Speaker 5: on the way home just to grab something to.
Speaker 9: Eat because it was always too late. And he picked
Speaker 9: me up and he said, gotch your mother's rude.
Speaker 5: And I said, why, what happened? And he said, she
Speaker 5: just kicked me out. Like I was just in the
Speaker 5: middle of packing up stuff in the box and she
Speaker 5: just said, just drop it. What's the time you need
Speaker 5: to go and so he was quite annoyed, I would
Speaker 5: say at that point, because he was there, it was
Speaker 5: a kind gesture helping her.
Speaker 9: And anyway we went. We stopped at the McDonalds.
Speaker 5: And McDonald's is one of those McDonald's where they have
Speaker 5: the drive through you can fill up your petrol as well,
Speaker 5: so it's got the petrol station attached to it. And
Speaker 5: we were sitting in there and I had my back
Speaker 5: to the bowsers, and anyway, Chris, I was getting him
Speaker 5: something extra to eat, and I stood up, and as
Speaker 5: I stood up, I gave him an open window to
Speaker 5: look out to the bowsers and he said, Oh, your
Speaker 5: mother's just pulled into the petrol bowser. And so I've
Speaker 5: turned around and I could see her. She got out
Speaker 5: of the car and she stood at the door and
Speaker 5: I was waving, and I didn't know if she could
Speaker 5: see me because I was inside in the restaurant. Anyway,
Speaker 5: she just looked at me like a deer in head lights.
Speaker 9: And there was.
Speaker 5: A guy in the car and well again, like you know,
Speaker 5: when you're at nighttime at the petrol station and the
Speaker 5: lights are reflecting on the windscreen, it's really hard to see.
Speaker 5: But he was quite tall, like I would say, his
Speaker 5: head was nearly touching the roof, and he seemed quite
Speaker 5: darker colored skin.
Speaker 3: No one you'd recognize, not that I would know.
Speaker 5: And anyway, so I'm standing there waving, and she got
Speaker 5: back in the car and she drove off, but instead
Speaker 5: of driving past me to get out onto the main road,
Speaker 5: she drove around the back but got stuck and ended
Speaker 5: up going through the drive through at McDonald's, and me,
Speaker 5: being twenty three, raced over and looked at her and
Speaker 5: pointed at her as she went through the drive throom
Speaker 5: and went busted, thinking it was funny, Like I thought, Oh,
Speaker 5: she's got a new boyfriend and she doesn't want to
Speaker 5: tell me about it.
Speaker 9: Anyway.
Speaker 5: The next day I said to her who was the
Speaker 5: guy in the car, and she said, he's just a friend.
Speaker 5: I met him at the art center through a friend
Speaker 5: of mutual friend, and he just wanted to take me
Speaker 5: out for a drink before I go overseas. I thought
Speaker 5: it was a bit odd. I was like, one, it's
Speaker 5: a bit late to be going out. Two you don't drink,
Speaker 5: so not sure where you were going, and three.
Speaker 9: Your behavior was a bit odd.
Speaker 5: So the mystery man in the car has always been
Speaker 5: a bit of a thing in the back of my head.
Speaker 9: Who is he and why was he there? And why
Speaker 9: did she panic?
Speaker 5: Because she didn't want obviously, I want us to see
Speaker 5: why she kicked Chris out so quickly.
Speaker 6: Marian's collection of valuable antiques and paintings were put into storage,
Speaker 6: but no one knows where. Shortly before her big trip,
Speaker 6: she helped to celebrate Sally's engagement to Chris.
Speaker 5: It was really nice actually, because my brother came and
Speaker 5: my dad came, and it was the first time in
Speaker 5: our adult life that all four of us had actually
Speaker 5: reunited and been back together. Her mum spent some really
Speaker 5: nice time with Owen two and took him up to
Speaker 5: see my grandparents, who he hadn't seen for a long
Speaker 5: time at Caloundra, and it was a really special time
Speaker 5: for him, men for mum. And Mum bought a cake
Speaker 5: for the engagement party and she organized all that, and
Speaker 5: she was quite excited for us that we were getting married.
Speaker 5: And she actually the school that she was working at
Speaker 5: had a beautiful chapel with all the rose facing inwards,
Speaker 5: which I really loved, and I asked her if we
Speaker 5: could get married there, and she said only the old
Speaker 5: boys are allowed to get married at the chapel, and
Speaker 5: so she said, but let me ask. So she went
Speaker 5: to the principal and said, can I ask one more
Speaker 5: favor before I leave? And he said, anything for you, Marian,
Speaker 5: And she said, well, Sally wants to get married in
Speaker 5: the chapel and he said, no problem. So they organized
Speaker 5: all our meetings and interviews with the priest, and Chris
Speaker 5: and I got married there eighteen months later. But Mum
Speaker 5: wasn't there, sadly, so it was a bit of a
Speaker 5: tough day.
Speaker 3: Well, you never assumed you'd never see her again.
Speaker 5: Never, you know, for her to leave halfway through a
Speaker 5: school year and up and just sell her house within
Speaker 5: three weeks and get on a plane and not want anyone.
Speaker 9: To come to the airport to see her off.
Speaker 5: For her to leave, and then to contact us numerous
Speaker 5: times while she's over there. That also says to me,
Speaker 5: if I was going to go missing, I'd get on
Speaker 5: a plane. You'd never see me ever again. I wouldn't
Speaker 5: be bothered to write postcards. I'd be out, I'd be gone.
Speaker 9: But the fact that she.
Speaker 5: Took time to write letters, She took time to write cards,
Speaker 5: she sent her sister birthday presents from over there that
Speaker 5: to me is not someone that is wanting to go missing.
Speaker 5: She also said in her postcards she was terribly concerned
Speaker 5: about some stuff that she'd had in her storage that.
Speaker 9: She needed me to take back.
Speaker 5: To TSS because she'd held it at home because of
Speaker 5: the safety of the product. So she had a set
Speaker 5: of kitchen scales, and she had bought a set herself
Speaker 5: with her own money, and the boys ruined it, and
Speaker 5: she used to use it for math lessons. And she
Speaker 5: had said to me in a letter and a postcard
Speaker 5: making reference. And the last time I spoke to her
Speaker 5: on the phone, all she was concerned about was this
Speaker 5: set of kitchen scales that cost fifty dollars, and she
Speaker 5: said to me, you know, you must get them.
Speaker 9: Back to the school.
Speaker 5: I took them home because I didn't want the boys
Speaker 5: to ruin them again.
Speaker 3: Those and the Russian dolls, and.
Speaker 9: The Russian dolls and these little teddy bears.
Speaker 10: Dear Salem Chris, Greetings from beautiful but very wet UK.
Speaker 6: From her letters and postcards home to family and friends,
Speaker 6: it seemed Marian was having a wonderful time.
Speaker 10: I finally arrived in England after a most interesting visit
Speaker 10: to the east.
Speaker 6: On July thirty first, nineteen ninety seven, Sally and Chris
Speaker 6: returned from a ski holiday in the Snowy Mountains to
Speaker 6: find a voice message from Marion on their answering machine.
Speaker 6: She'd heard of the deadly Threadbow landslide and was concerned
Speaker 6: for their safety.
Speaker 7: The landslide started at the edge of the Alpine Way
Speaker 7: before slamming into the Bimberdeen staff Lodge and the nineteen
Speaker 7: ski workers in.
Speaker 5: Chris and I had been skiing at Parish the day
Speaker 5: before the Threadbow disaster happened, and when we got home
Speaker 5: we'd driven down. So when we got home back to
Speaker 5: the Gold Coast back in the days when we had
Speaker 5: answering machines on our phone, and we got in and
Speaker 5: there was the light was flashing and I pressed it
Speaker 5: and it was Mum Hi, and it was the first
Speaker 5: time she'd rung me since she'd been away, and this
Speaker 5: was the thirty first of July, and she said, oh,
Speaker 5: we've just heard word over here about the Threadbow disaster.
Speaker 5: What's happened at Threadbow. I was just worried for you
Speaker 5: and Chris and making sure you're okay, I'll try you
Speaker 5: again later. And I got really sad because I really
Speaker 5: desperately wanted to talk to he because I just bought
Speaker 5: my wedding dress on the way home, literally the day before, on.
Speaker 6: August the first, Marion called Sally again and.
Speaker 5: She said she was at a payphone and she told me,
Speaker 5: I'm sitting here in Tunbridge Wells in the UK, and
Speaker 5: she said, I'm.
Speaker 9: Having a fabulous time.
Speaker 5: I'm just having some SCons and tea with some little
Speaker 5: old ladies that I've met and I'm having a really
Speaker 5: nice time. But I just thought i'd touch base. I
Speaker 5: wanted to make sure you and Chris were okay, and
Speaker 5: so we had a big chat and she asked me
Speaker 5: about if I managed to get the things back to TSS,
Speaker 5: which I had, and we talked for a bit about
Speaker 5: what she was doing, and she said to me, I've
Speaker 5: postponed my trip on the Orient Express because I'm having
Speaker 5: such a lovely time here exploring everywhere, so I'll go
Speaker 5: on that later. And then the phone kept dropping out,
Speaker 5: so the money the phone.
Speaker 6: Kept dropping out because it was a pay phone back
Speaker 6: in those days, unless you kept putting coins.
Speaker 5: In correct was a voice saying well, just kept dropping out,
Speaker 5: and then she'd bring me back and she's, I've got
Speaker 5: more money, and so she kept putting the money in
Speaker 5: and I said to her, where are you and I'll
Speaker 5: call you back save being on the payphone. She goes, no,
Speaker 5: I'm out. I'm just I'm having tea with these lit
Speaker 5: old ladies.
Speaker 9: I just wanted to call.
Speaker 3: She didn't tell you the location she called from, that,
Speaker 3: did she.
Speaker 9: She said she was in Tumbridge, Wells.
Speaker 3: She did say it was Timber sent the letter from Yes, correct, okay.
Speaker 5: And I had you know, back in the day, there
Speaker 5: was that delay when you were talking to someone overseas,
Speaker 5: the international call. You kind of got that delay before
Speaker 5: they'd speak, so she was definitely definitely there. It was
Speaker 5: definitely an overseas call. And the money kept dropping out,
Speaker 5: so I think she rang back about five times, and
Speaker 5: then the last time she rang back, she said, this
Speaker 5: is all the money I've got now, So you just
Speaker 5: talk until the money drops out.
Speaker 9: So I just kept talking and telling her what we're
Speaker 9: up to.
Speaker 5: And I just got an interview with the police force
Speaker 5: because I was trying to get into the police service
Speaker 5: and bought the wedding dress. So I just told her everything,
Speaker 5: and then the phone just went dead. And that was
Speaker 5: the last time I've ever spoken to her.
Speaker 6: It was the last time any of Marian's loved ones
Speaker 6: spoke to her. Do you still hear her voice in
Speaker 6: that phone call?
Speaker 3: Today?
Speaker 5: Her voice resonates with me a lot in the back
Speaker 5: of my mind, and I can hear her talking and laughing,
Speaker 5: and yeah.
Speaker 9: So she was a big part of my life.
Speaker 5: So my mum and dad separated when I was really little,
Speaker 5: so I was really just my brother, my mother, and
Speaker 5: I who did everything together. So we went on holidays together,
Speaker 5: and so, yeah, she's a big part of my world.
Speaker 6: After that final phone call on August first, the days
Speaker 6: and weeks slipped by, Sally wasn't too concerned at first.
Speaker 6: Marian had said she needed a break and not to
Speaker 6: expect much correspondence. But on October the eighteenth, alarm bells
Speaker 6: rang for Sally. It was her brother Owen's birthday. Marian
Speaker 6: always made a face at birthdays, not this time.
Speaker 5: I was starting to get a bit worried. I was like,
Speaker 5: I don't even know where she is. I don't know
Speaker 5: what hotel she's staying at. I don't know where exactly,
Speaker 5: she's located over there, and so I started to get
Speaker 5: a bit worried Reed, and I rang Owen two days
Speaker 5: after his birthday, and I said, did you hear from
Speaker 5: Mom for your birthday?
Speaker 9: And he said no.
Speaker 6: With increasing suspicions about the lack of contact with her mother,
Speaker 6: Sally decided to contact Marion's bank to see whether she
Speaker 6: was still accessing her accounts. Remember, Marion had just sold
Speaker 6: her Gold Coast home, so she had plenty of money
Speaker 6: available to her.
Speaker 5: I had her bank details because I kept her who
Speaker 5: she had given me her car, and the plan that
Speaker 5: we had was that I was going to sell my
Speaker 5: car and then give her the money for my car
Speaker 5: and keep her car. And if in the event that
Speaker 5: I didn't sell my car, I just look after her
Speaker 5: car while she was away and she'd get it when
Speaker 5: she came back. So it was a pretty even Stephen
Speaker 5: kind of situation. But I had her bank details in
Speaker 5: saying that, and so I rang the bank while my
Speaker 5: friends were over for dinner, and I said to the
Speaker 5: lady on the phone, my mum's traveling overseas by herself.
Speaker 5: We haven't heard from her for a little while. And
Speaker 5: it was my brother's birthday, and I'm concerned for her.
Speaker 5: Could you please check to see if she's using her account.
Speaker 5: The woman's standard answer was I'm really sorry. I can't
Speaker 5: tell you anything due to privacy. And then she paused
Speaker 5: and she said, did you say that your mum's overseas
Speaker 5: And I said yes, and she said, oh my god,
Speaker 5: money's coming out of her account and Barren Bay. She
Speaker 5: kind of had said to me, you can't tell anybody
Speaker 5: that I'm telling you this information, because you know, obviously
Speaker 5: I'm not supposed to tell you, but I'm actually concerned.
Speaker 5: So she then told me everything that had happened on
Speaker 5: her account, and we counted it, and she said, there's
Speaker 5: like three and a half weeks of every day in
Speaker 5: Byron Bay, five thousand dollars increments being stripped out of
Speaker 5: your mum's account. Three of those days in the middle somewhere.
Speaker 5: We're back in Burly Heads on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 5: She taught on the Gold Coast. Chris and I lived
Speaker 5: five minutes from Burley, and I've always questioned if it
Speaker 5: was her taking the money out, One, why wouldn't you
Speaker 5: take it out in a lump sum?
Speaker 9: Two? Why would you do it every day?
Speaker 5: For in five thousand dollar increments, which is the maximum
Speaker 5: you can take out. And three, why would you come
Speaker 5: back to the Gold Coast where you are at absolute
Speaker 5: risk of being seen if you want to go missing
Speaker 5: and everyone thinks you're in the UK?
Speaker 9: Why would you walk the streets of Burley?
Speaker 3: And how was the money withdrawn?
Speaker 9: I don't know. I don't know that.
Speaker 5: So what happened was we kind of did a quick
Speaker 5: addition of it and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 5: that's like eighty thousand dollars, what the hell?
Speaker 9: And back then that was a lot of money.
Speaker 5: So Chris and I got in the car the next
Speaker 5: day and I took one of her school photos, portrait photos,
Speaker 5: and we walked.
Speaker 9: The streets of Byron Bay.
Speaker 5: I went to Lowest Lane shoes and I went to
Speaker 5: places I knew that she had visited in Byron Bay
Speaker 5: that she liked, and not that she went to Byron
Speaker 5: Bay very often, but she had a fetish for these
Speaker 5: shoes down there.
Speaker 9: That was one of the first ports of call.
Speaker 5: Where we went to see if she'd been in there,
Speaker 5: and they were like, I'm really sorry, and everyone's standard
Speaker 5: answer was I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1: So no one who Sally approached in Byron Bay in
Speaker 1: late nineteen ninety seven, could recall seeing Marion in the
Speaker 1: weeks that her bank accounts were drained.
Speaker 6: Sally contacted police on the twenty second of October nineteen
Speaker 6: ninety seven and reported her mother, Marian Barter missing. Nothing
Speaker 6: has been straightforward since. On August the second, nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 6: the day after Sally last spoke to her mother Marian
Speaker 6: on the phone, there's a record of Marian's passport returning
Speaker 6: to Australia under the new name Flora Bella Natalia Marian ramecl.
Speaker 9: And I thought that was quite odd.
Speaker 5: And the documentation also said that she was living in
Speaker 5: Luxembourg and that she was married status married and Judy's
Speaker 5: home occupation was home duties, and that she was coming
Speaker 5: to Australia for three days. However, police have confirmed to
Speaker 5: me that Customs told them that the passport never left
Speaker 5: the country again. So even though it said that she
Speaker 5: was only coming for three days, that passport never has
Speaker 5: left Australia again, which.
Speaker 9: Is baffling to me.
Speaker 3: So who is this Flora no idea.
Speaker 5: I've never heard of the name Flora Bella in my life.
Speaker 6: It's been confirmed Marian did change her name by deed
Speaker 6: Pole before she left for England, but her family did
Speaker 6: not know. Sadly only found out in May twenty and eleven,
Speaker 6: four years after she discovered Marian was no longer on
Speaker 6: the official missing persons list.
Speaker 5: I had so much contradicting information from police, so police
Speaker 5: rang me a week after I listed her missing and
Speaker 5: said she doesn't want anyone to know where she is
Speaker 5: or what she's doing. I was then told by the
Speaker 5: AFP that they never physically cited her, They only spoke
Speaker 5: to someone on the phone. Yet that freedom of information
Speaker 5: document says that that is not reflected in the event.
Speaker 5: I think it says, and it says that I have
Speaker 5: In twenty eleven, there's a statement saying the nixt of
Speaker 5: Kin has said that she was called by Nick Byron
Speaker 5: Bay police to state that her mother was found and
Speaker 5: that she didn't want anyone to do anyone to know
Speaker 5: where she was. However, this is not reflected in the
Speaker 5: event and that's not documented in the statement. And I
Speaker 5: was like, wow, one hand, I've read that I was
Speaker 5: confirmed one hundred percent. Rang me and told me that
Speaker 5: I told my grandfather. He said that's not good enough.
Speaker 5: So he then went to the Salvation Army Tracing service.
Speaker 5: They then started doing a search, but I have led
Speaker 5: a documentation from them too, saying we've never found your.
Speaker 6: Mother, to further muddy the waters. Through September nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 6: large sums of money were taken from Marion's Australian bank account,
Speaker 6: and her Medicare card was used in northern New South Wales. However,
Speaker 6: the twenty thousand dollars which Marion transferred to a Barclay's
Speaker 6: Bank account in England to pay for her year of
Speaker 6: travel has never been touched, nor has her superannuation. There
Speaker 6: was no contact when Marion's father died, when Sally got married,
Speaker 6: or when Sally had her children. Even when Owen, Sally's brother,
Speaker 6: Marian's son, tragically took his own life the age of
Speaker 6: twenty seven them.
Speaker 3: He said, it was the worst day of your life.
Speaker 9: I was horrendous. It was horrendous.
Speaker 5: So Ella was only six months old, seven months old,
Speaker 5: and we'd been sitting out in the garden. So Chris
Speaker 5: was working in the garden and I had her on
Speaker 5: my lap, and Eden, his fiance who he'd been with
Speaker 5: for ten years, rang me and said, have you heard
Speaker 5: from Owen And I said, no, I haven't. And she said, well,
Speaker 5: his motorbike's missing, and he hasn't been at work for
Speaker 5: the last two days, and the apartment looks weird. She said,
Speaker 5: all the powerpoints have been pulled out of the wall,
Speaker 5: and there's money and his keys sitting on the bench,
Speaker 5: and there's a note there saying this is the money
Speaker 5: to do my laundry. And anyway, so I said, well,
Speaker 5: he's probably just gone for a ride somewhere to chill out.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I haven't heard from him. He'll be fine,
Speaker 5: you know, no idea whatsoever. And then Chris turned around
Speaker 5: and said.
Speaker 9: Has she checked the garage? And I looked at him.
Speaker 5: I went, why would you say that. I don't say that. Shaky, silly.
Speaker 5: That was in the afternoon. Anyway, I said to Ed
Speaker 5: and go and check in the garage. See if he's
Speaker 5: in the garage. He might be me thinking he was
Speaker 5: in the garage working on his bike or something. Anyway,
Speaker 5: Dad called me at ten twenty one pm. I had
Speaker 5: just finished feeding Ella at ten, so I just put
Speaker 5: her down and I just got into bed and kind
Speaker 5: of just dozed off, and the phone rang and I
Speaker 5: remember thinking looking at the clock, going, who would ring
Speaker 5: me at this time of night? And Dad rang me,
Speaker 5: and he had some profanities to speak, and you know,
Speaker 5: in a stressed situation, saying the police are here, He's
Speaker 5: done it, I've gone and I've got to go and
Speaker 5: identify him now at the morgue. And he was in
Speaker 5: a very panicked manner. It was not gently told to me.
Speaker 5: I was very abruptly told, but understandably. Dad was really upset.
Speaker 5: So I jumped out of bed and I had I
Speaker 5: put a robe on because it was like I was cold,
Speaker 5: and I put grabbed a photo of him, and I
Speaker 5: just put it on my heart and I just tied
Speaker 5: my robe really tight, and I remember walking around the
Speaker 5: house going, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 9: I don't know what to do.
Speaker 6: The valuable paintings that Marian stood have seemingly vanished. Despite
Speaker 6: official claims that Marian is alive and doesn't want to
Speaker 6: be found, no one, including investigators and police, has actually
Speaker 6: physically seen her. How would you describe the dedication of
Speaker 6: the authorities, including the police, in terms of finding out
Speaker 6: how your mother vanished.
Speaker 5: I'm really bewildered and very sad because she is a person,
Speaker 5: she's a human being, she's a mother, she's a grandmother.
Speaker 5: You know, she's missed out on so many things in
Speaker 5: life that are really important.
Speaker 9: And I will tell you that.
Speaker 5: Unfortunately, I don't want to speak badly about anybody, but
Speaker 5: I will tell you that I feel like every single
Speaker 5: time I've reached out and asked for people to help me,
Speaker 5: they've slammed the door in my face quite firmly.
Speaker 6: Is part of that, because they think that Marian has
Speaker 6: chosen to disappear, and you just can't accept that, because
Speaker 6: that's when reading the documents, that's what I keep getting
Speaker 6: from people, from police, from authorities, from the Salvos. They're
Speaker 6: trying to impress upon you the fact that she may
Speaker 6: never have gone missing.
Speaker 3: Is that how you feel? Is that? Do you feel
Speaker 3: that that's the way they're treating you?
Speaker 5: No, And unfortunately those documents have a lot of information
Speaker 5: on them that is not correct, and that troubles me
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: What's your gut feeling about what's happened to Marian based on.
Speaker 5: The fact of how quickly she quit school and left
Speaker 5: and was not in a very normal state that I
Speaker 5: would know my mother to be, and she was not happy.
Speaker 5: She was very upset, she was frazzled. She was to
Speaker 5: tell Chris to get out. Is not her personality at all.
Speaker 5: Something had happened, Something has happened to.
Speaker 9: Make her leave.
Speaker 6: Sally has endured half a lifetime of sadness, frustration, confusion
Speaker 6: and hope. What if she's out there, alive and well,
Speaker 6: knowing what you're going through, but just for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: not reaching out to you.
Speaker 3: How do you process that?
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 5: I've tried to stay positive about it the whole way along.
Speaker 5: I don't want to be an emotional mess about the situation,
Speaker 5: and I've I've kind of thought to myself that if
Speaker 5: it was a case that she just wanted to be missing,
Speaker 5: that would like I would just walk away from that.
Speaker 5: I would not sit there and question her or you know,
Speaker 5: I've read a lot about a lot of literature and
Speaker 5: a lot of information about missing persons, and so many
Speaker 5: people who are missing or go missing and then decide
Speaker 5: that they want to come home, but they don't come
Speaker 5: home because they're worried about the backlash that's going to
Speaker 5: happen with their family, and what are the family going
Speaker 5: to say to them? Are they going to I just
Speaker 5: give her a hug, and the first thing I do
Speaker 5: is introduce her to my kids.
Speaker 9: That's pretty tough. That's all you can ask for.
Speaker 5: I wouldn't even I don't even think i'd care to
Speaker 5: know what she's been doing. It's hard, but anyway, we'll see,
Speaker 5: we'll see what this brings.
Speaker 9: I'm hoping.
Speaker 5: I'm only doing this so that I can try and
Speaker 5: find her. Just give her a hug, and you know,
Speaker 5: tell her that she's loved and that we've missed her.
Speaker 5: And I'm sad that she missed my wedding, and I'm
Speaker 5: sad that she missed me having babies, and I'm sad
Speaker 5: that she's missed are graduating. And you know that she
Speaker 5: plays the cello, and that Darcy is the state champion
Speaker 5: in gymnastics, and Caleb bl Love's playing rugby. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm sad that she doesn't get to see all those
Speaker 5: wonderful things.
Speaker 1: In episode two, we learned about Marian's life, who she
Speaker 1: was as a person, from those who knew her best,
Speaker 1: her friends, and her family. We went right back to
Speaker 1: when Marion Barter was Marian Wilson, the first child of
Speaker 1: Colleen and Jack Mackenzie Wilson born on October third, nineteen
Speaker 1: forty five in Inner West Sydney.
Speaker 6: The family moved to Queensland when Marion was about four
Speaker 6: or five, living in the bayside suburb of Wellington Point
Speaker 6: near Brisbane for the early part of the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 6: The Wilsons returned to Sydney around seven years later, to
Speaker 6: the southern suburb of Oyster Bay, just in time for
Speaker 6: Marian to start secondary school at Port Hacking State High.
Speaker 1: One of the few people who remember Marian well from
Speaker 1: that time has agreed to speak with me. It's her sister,
Speaker 1: Deirdre Stewart.
Speaker 4: Hello.
Speaker 1: There were four girls in the family, Marion, Deirdre, Bromwyn
Speaker 1: and Lee. Deirdre was two years younger than her big sister.
Speaker 8: Yes, I mean, like all parent children relationships, there were
Speaker 8: times when it was a bit strange, but generally speaking,
Speaker 8: I think she adored her parents and they adored her.
Speaker 1: Do you have any rebellious years as a teenager like that?
Speaker 8: No, don't think so.
Speaker 1: So she was well, good daughter.
Speaker 8: We were all good daughters. We did what we were told.
Speaker 8: We were a bit frightened of our father, so if
Speaker 8: he told us to do something, we did it.
Speaker 1: So basically it was a nice, happy household.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: While Deirdre admits she wasn't close to Marian, she does
Speaker 1: remember her fondly.
Speaker 8: She was my big sister, and she did more interesting
Speaker 8: things than me because she was older than me. And
Speaker 8: she had beautiful clothes, which I was very envious of.
Speaker 8: But having said that, she often lent me clothes to
Speaker 8: wear I was going out somewhere. She used to buy
Speaker 8: really nice clothes. She liked his minor label clothes like
Speaker 8: Norma Tullow and designers from the nineteen sixties, and she
Speaker 8: had quite a lot of them. And she had a
Speaker 8: dressmaker that used to make a thing, so she sort
Speaker 8: of used to design her own clothes and get this
Speaker 8: dressmaker to make it really really nice clothes. She was
Speaker 8: very attractive, Marian. She had a lovely siger and she
Speaker 8: always looked gorgeous in clothes. She was always immaculately dressed.
Speaker 8: And you know, she had excellent tastes in things. She
Speaker 8: loved old things, and she collected bits of china and
Speaker 8: stuff like that. She knew a lot about china and
Speaker 8: what china was valuable and what furniture was worth collecting.
Speaker 8: So yeah, she had very good taste in clothes and
Speaker 8: in daycor and she was very elegant and very attractive,
Speaker 8: and she had a very outgoing personality. Everybody loved Marryan.
Speaker 8: She would always talk to people and pour a heart
Speaker 8: out to people, so that you know, that was probably
Speaker 8: one thing that was a little bit unwise on her part,
Speaker 8: so that everybody knew everything that she was thinking and feeling.
Speaker 8: Like she wore a heart on a sleeve.
Speaker 1: Marian loved to be loved, Oh.
Speaker 8: Yes, definitely. She liked men, and she liked having a
Speaker 8: man in her life. In fact, she told me once
Speaker 8: she could never live without her having a man in
Speaker 8: her life. So yes, that was important to her. And
Speaker 8: she had a lot of relationships outside those marriages too,
Speaker 8: so you know, she liked men and she liked having
Speaker 8: relationship with me. I wouldn't surprise me at all if
Speaker 8: she'd found, you know, another guy, and was you know,
Speaker 8: I had fallen in love and was troubling overseas with him.
Speaker 8: That's probably what I would have soon happen to her.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't surprise you if the reason she gave it
Speaker 1: all up was for a man.
Speaker 8: No, that wouldn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 1: Unlike Marion's daughter, Sally, Deirdre is happy to let the
Speaker 1: disappearance of her sister rest. She doesn't feel the need
Speaker 1: to know what happened and wishes Sally could just let go.
Speaker 8: I think she should just leave Mary and be and
Speaker 8: just accept that she's gone and that she's got a
Speaker 8: new life somewhere and just leave it go. But that's
Speaker 8: something and she feels the need to track her down
Speaker 8: and find out what happened, and just in case, you know,
Speaker 8: something awful has happened to her, well, then that's what
Speaker 8: she's got to do. She's the only person who knows that.
Speaker 8: I'm not about to judge Sally for what she's doing,
Speaker 8: but it's not something I would do, she says.
Speaker 1: The impact on the family has been enormous.
Speaker 8: Lee gets very distressed. She was very close to Marian,
Speaker 8: and she gets quite distressed when Marian's brought up again.
Speaker 8: I think she's a bit unhappy that Sally's, you know,
Speaker 8: dredging it all up again. And Sally has sent us
Speaker 8: a couple of texts implying that Lee and Brown and
Speaker 8: I have all been trying to hide information from her
Speaker 8: or not divulging information that we had and that you know,
Speaker 8: we weren't being very helpful, and that she was trying
Speaker 8: to find out what happened to her mother and we
Speaker 8: weren't being very helpful, which is totally untrue. So that
Speaker 8: was quite hurtful. I know Lee was very upset about that.
Speaker 8: I think Bron just ignored it.
Speaker 1: You seem a little bit disappointed though, that Sally's still
Speaker 1: pursuing this.
Speaker 8: Yes, probably probably because it just sort of dreades it
Speaker 8: all up again, like you sort of get on with
Speaker 8: your life and you know, I mean I think about
Speaker 8: it periodically and I think, well, she's probably in some
Speaker 8: nice place doing all sorts of interesting things, and so yeah,
Speaker 8: I think it's quite painful to go through it all again.
Speaker 8: I'm glad my mother is not around to go through
Speaker 8: it again because it was upsetting for her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it must have broken her heart to have a daughter.
Speaker 1: I mean, I can't imagine it'd be hard enough with
Speaker 1: your mother, but your daughter.
Speaker 8: Yes, it was very upshitting for them both.
Speaker 1: Was it your parents that you felt were the most
Speaker 1: hurt or devastated by it?
Speaker 8: I think so.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: Did we last saw and spoke with Marion at Christmas
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 8: To spend Christmas with Mum and Dad on Sunshine Coast,
Speaker 8: so we would have done that as her normal. Ninety seven,
Speaker 8: which was the year that she left, I also went
Speaker 8: overseas and I was away for three months, so maybe Dune,
Speaker 8: July and the end of July. I came back at
Speaker 8: the end of July, so I was actually still away
Speaker 8: when she left to go to England. Didn't see her off.
Speaker 8: I didn't get to talk to her or wish were
Speaker 8: a happy holiday or anything. I know. She went up
Speaker 8: to stay with Mom and Dad for a while before
Speaker 8: she left. I think both my other sisters went up
Speaker 8: there as well, so they chatted to her, but no,
Speaker 8: I didn't actually get to speak to her, so it's
Speaker 8: a long time since I've spoken to her. I came
Speaker 8: back at the end of July and there was a
Speaker 8: little pastor waiting for me because it was my birthday
Speaker 8: on the seventh of August, and she sent me a
Speaker 8: little present and a little card which I didn't keep, unfortunately,
Speaker 8: but I read it and she didn't say anything which
Speaker 8: I thought was unusual or anything. She just wished me
Speaker 8: a happy birthday and hoped I'd have had a good
Speaker 8: trip and told me how excited she was because she
Speaker 8: was just about to get onto the Orient Express. So
Speaker 8: she seems to have sent a lot of letters to
Speaker 8: people around that date. And after we discussed it together,
Speaker 8: we talked about it together later on when we started
Speaker 8: to under you know, what was going on, you know,
Speaker 8: had she which was she?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: You know what about your sisters? Did they have any
Speaker 1: other contact with Marion? Not that I know of, no
Speaker 1: postcards as well or anything that.
Speaker 8: Yes, I think they probably all got cards as well,
Speaker 8: you know, or a postcard on my postcard and present
Speaker 8: came from Tunbridge, Wells my elderly relatives. Postcard came from Sussex.
Speaker 8: I'm very excited, she said. I've been very brave. I
Speaker 8: hired a car and I've been touring around and having
Speaker 8: a lovely time.
Speaker 6: So from Deirdre's memories of her sister's childhood in the
Speaker 6: nineteen fifties to her last contact in nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 6: we're now skipping back to the nineteen sixties when Marian
Speaker 6: was dating Johnny Warren, a talented young soccer player who'd
Speaker 6: go on to captain Australia.
Speaker 7: Warren, how many goals would Australia need to win on
Speaker 7: Sunday Week.
Speaker 6: I don't remember when, maybe enough and play in Australia's
Speaker 6: first appearance at the World Cup.
Speaker 11: Enough.
Speaker 6: He became a broadcaster known as Captain Soccero for his
Speaker 6: passionate work to promote his favorite game, Canbra Boy. Marion
Speaker 6: and Johnny married in Dulige Hill, a suburb of Sydney,
Speaker 6: in December nineteen sixty seven, but the happy times don't last.
Speaker 6: Johnny was between international soccer tours when he announced the
Speaker 6: marriage was over. Marian and Johnny were married for just
Speaker 6: four years.
Speaker 1: I'm calling an old friend of Marian's. Hello, Hello, Janie
Speaker 1: Alison Sandy. How are you? Janice White used to teach
Speaker 1: with her when they were in their twenties.
Speaker 2: How I'm just changing years.
Speaker 1: They met not long after Marion's marriage to soccer star
Speaker 1: Johnny ended.
Speaker 2: I think it was seventy two when I met Marion,
Speaker 2: and it was before Sally and Owen were born, and
Speaker 2: I was working in a school, primary school in Sydney,
Speaker 2: and I was not long back from working in western
Speaker 2: New South Wales, so I was a feeling a bit
Speaker 2: disoriented and Marian came to work during the year in
Speaker 2: the classroom next door to me, and as we were
Speaker 2: a bit separate from the rest of the school, we
Speaker 2: sort of she I think she needed someone to talk with,
Speaker 2: and I guess I needed a friend in a because
Speaker 2: I was in a totally new situation as well. We jirlled.
Speaker 2: Then we stayed friends until she disappeared.
Speaker 1: When you say different circumstances from what you were before,
Speaker 1: can you explain what you mean.
Speaker 2: Marian had come out of her first marriage and she
Speaker 2: was feeling very hurt and hadn't lasted a long time
Speaker 2: the marriage, and they had been in a long term
Speaker 2: relationship before they married, but then wasn't a long lasting marriage.
Speaker 2: And I think she was I guess, you know, of
Speaker 2: all the feelings that you would be experiencing at that
Speaker 2: time that she was. She was a bit lost, she
Speaker 2: was confused, she was looking for direction, she was wondering
Speaker 2: where her life was going to lead, all those types
Speaker 2: of things. And as I said, I'd come back from
Speaker 2: back from country New South Wales and was living back
Speaker 2: in the city again, and I was, you know, I
Speaker 2: was actually trying to re establish myself as well. But yeah,
Speaker 2: and I guess because we were also in a building
Speaker 2: that was a bit separated from our colleagues. We would
Speaker 2: often just sort of you know, I didn't have morning
Speaker 2: tea together and things like that. She was a very
Speaker 2: easy person to talk with, and she she was always
Speaker 2: the person that was very warm, so you felt that
Speaker 2: you could talk with her and that she would, you know,
Speaker 2: take on board what you were saying. You know, she
Speaker 2: would be supportive under different circumstances. She was also a
Speaker 2: lot of fun as well.
Speaker 1: So what sort of teacher was she?
Speaker 2: Oh, she was a wonderful teacher and wouldn't be the
Speaker 2: only person that said that. She was full of energy.
Speaker 2: She was lively, extremely creative, very musical, really good with
Speaker 2: the children. I think she was teaching a year two class,
Speaker 2: and she was an excellent teacher. She was delightful. She
Speaker 2: would be full of energy and had wonderful ideas, could
Speaker 2: develop great relationships with children. But she was also you know,
Speaker 2: when she needed to be firm, She set rules, and
Speaker 2: the children really enjoyed being with her and in her
Speaker 2: class and all that. Yeah, I mean she was accepted
Speaker 2: well by the rest of the staff all that sort
Speaker 2: of thing as well. So yeah, now I would have
Speaker 2: been delighted if she'd been in any school that I
Speaker 2: worked in as well. There was never any doubt that
Speaker 2: she was a great teacher.
Speaker 1: So then I guess how did her life develop? After
Speaker 1: getting over her first failed marriage with Johnny, she.
Speaker 2: Actually went on to meet Stewart and she married Stuart
Speaker 2: and had Sally and Owen, So that she always moved.
Speaker 2: Marian was a real home and that in any home
Speaker 2: that she had, it was always really well decorated, but
Speaker 2: not in a formal way, in a really comfortable way.
Speaker 2: But she had lovely furniture and lovely crockery, and she
Speaker 2: knew how to create what was a really comfortable home,
Speaker 2: but a very attractive home as well. But she did
Speaker 2: move around a bit.
Speaker 1: Stuart Brown and Marian met through Stuart's sister, Robin Creevy,
Speaker 1: who was then the deputy principal at Peaker South Infant School,
Speaker 1: where Marion worked.
Speaker 12: I knew her because I was the infants mistress at
Speaker 12: peak Her South, and she was transferred from Narwey because
Speaker 12: the infant's mistress there was coming. Now that's right, I
Speaker 12: was deputy there. The new infant mistress was coming from
Speaker 12: Norwiy and Marian was such a priest teacher she got
Speaker 12: her to transfer to peak Her so Marian transferred there,
Speaker 12: and I would have to say she was probably one
Speaker 12: of the best teachers I have ever encountered. She had
Speaker 12: great energy. The house that they lived in at mort
Speaker 12: Dale Heights was absolutely so beautiful, and she was a
Speaker 12: great gardener. She spent many many hours in the garden
Speaker 12: and everything she did was perfect. I always found her
Speaker 12: a person of integrity. She was intelligent, she was very creative.
Speaker 12: Nobody worked harder with their children in their classes. Do
Speaker 12: you know we used to have a third of a
Speaker 12: pint of milk that was distributed children every day, and
Speaker 12: John Wren was promoting some sort of energy thing, like
Speaker 12: a chocolate based energy thing that you added to milk.
Speaker 12: She used to spend her morning tea time taking the
Speaker 12: lids off enough bottles of milk and mixing packets of
Speaker 12: that into the milk for the children to have. That's
Speaker 12: the kind of person she was.
Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy two, Stuart and Marion were a couple
Speaker 1: because they were both getting over failed marriages. Pretty soon,
Speaker 1: Marian was pregnant. Sally was born in May nineteen seventy three.
Speaker 1: Then Owen arrived seventeen months later. Did you see any
Speaker 1: changes in her since then, you know, like, how was
Speaker 1: she as a mum? So this is Janus again.
Speaker 2: Oh, she had daughter children, took care of them well
Speaker 2: and played with them, took some places, was a great
Speaker 2: person for taking the children off to have different experiences
Speaker 2: and that type of thing. She loved her children. She
Speaker 2: was very affectionate with them. That was another thing about
Speaker 2: Marian that she wasn't stand office at all as far
Speaker 2: as her physical nature was concerned. So they should give
Speaker 2: them hugs and kisses and tell them how wonderful they were,
Speaker 2: and all of that type of thing. From what I
Speaker 2: could see, she was a very loving, very affectionate mum.
Speaker 1: But things guarded turning sour. According to Robin, Marion left
Speaker 1: Stewart and moved to Queensland in nineteen seventy five, but
Speaker 1: when Stuart's father Ivan was diagnosed with leukemia, the couple reunited,
Speaker 1: moving to Springwood in the Blue Mountains and officially tied
Speaker 1: the knot in nineteen seventy seven, but by nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine it was all over. So Marian was on the
Speaker 1: move again, from Springwood to nearby Lapston. When her children
Speaker 1: were in primary school, she met Ray Barter, a car
Speaker 1: detailer and the man who had become her third husband.
Speaker 6: By the nineteen eighties, Marion and her old teaching friend
Speaker 6: Janis had lost contact to some degree, but new friendships
Speaker 6: will form me. Wendy Paggart's son, Jerome, was in Marian's
Speaker 6: first grade class at Springwood Public School in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 13: She was an amazing teacher, best teacher I've ever experienced
Speaker 13: in the whole schooling career of my children. She was very,
Speaker 13: very dedicated to me. She opened up a lot of
Speaker 13: new doors. She loved ballet and plays and all sorts
Speaker 13: of theatrical things which myself or my children hadn't been
Speaker 13: exposed to previously. She took them to Seize one late
Speaker 13: in Sydney. She got even the boys dressed up in
Speaker 13: the most out handish gear in plays and everything.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 13: I've got pictures of my son a big top hat
Speaker 13: in the night shirt as Peter Pan. The kids all
Speaker 13: loved her.
Speaker 6: Wendy later became godmother to Sally, and I.
Speaker 13: Kept up the friendship with her even.
Speaker 6: After that, and a bride'smaid at Marion and Ray's wedding
Speaker 6: on June the ninth, nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 13: Seemed a nice enough fellow and they showed dogs together.
Speaker 13: They were Afghan dogs that they had there.
Speaker 6: Around nineteen eighty eight, Marion Ray and Sally moved to
Speaker 6: the south coast of New South Wales, building a home
Speaker 6: at Gyngong good Morning. There she met Barb Matthey.
Speaker 11: She was a neighbor and she moved into a house
Speaker 11: opposite us at Jerringong and we got to know each
Speaker 11: other because she's a very friend. She was a very
Speaker 11: friendly person. She was a teacher and I was a
Speaker 11: teacher as well, so I wasn't teaching at that time,
Speaker 11: but she was still teaching.
Speaker 6: Then she shifted again to Kayama Heights.
Speaker 11: She was like that a little bit. She would not
Speaker 11: put down roots for long.
Speaker 6: Marian and her son Owen had always shared a special bond.
Speaker 1: But since Ray had come along, the connection between mother
Speaker 1: and son had deteriorated.
Speaker 4: He was a funny young kid. He was extremely intelligent,
Speaker 4: and she always said that he needed to be in
Speaker 4: a special school or a special class because he was
Speaker 4: so intelligent. He was so far ahead of the other
Speaker 4: kids that he's really boord and he was always in
Speaker 4: trouble at school. But on the other hand, he used
Speaker 4: to do some really weird teens, but she really sort
Speaker 4: of doated on him. Sally good kid, you know. I
Speaker 4: got on really well with Sally, didn't get on so
Speaker 4: well with Owen.
Speaker 1: Why was that?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 8: He was just.
Speaker 4: Sent without sounding awful. He was an odd child, He
Speaker 4: had funny ways. Yeah, he was just shy.
Speaker 12: Was very normal.
Speaker 4: You know, She's a really normal, every day Australian kid.
Speaker 4: But Owen was different.
Speaker 1: Was it just about being the male in the household?
Speaker 6: Was he just threatened by more than that?
Speaker 4: It was more than that. It was also that well.
Speaker 4: Once I remember was that mowing the lawn and Owen
Speaker 4: came out and took the mother and said I'll do that,
Speaker 4: and I said doing him? I said why? He said,
Speaker 4: because I'm the man of the house. And I said, well,
Speaker 4: you're too young for one thing to be pushing a mother.
Speaker 4: I said, so best to go inside and I'll finishing.
Speaker 4: So there there was a little bit of tension there
Speaker 4: with him. I basically just didn't worry about it. I
Speaker 4: just ignored it. But she did. She did have a
Speaker 4: bit of a soft spot for On, but then she
Speaker 4: wouldn't know about his because that happened after she disappeared.
Speaker 1: Obviously, he didn't get along on that sway. Oh, and
Speaker 1: ended up living.
Speaker 3: With his dad.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, that was part of the reason. Yeah, he
Speaker 4: did go and do with his father and we didn't
Speaker 4: sort of see why do I To be honest.
Speaker 1: Do you think it was something within Owen or was
Speaker 1: circumstances that kind of led to I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: his mum disappearing. Could that have been a contributor to
Speaker 1: what actually ended up happening.
Speaker 4: God's that's really hard question doing so. I don't really know,
Speaker 4: to be honest, it's possible. But he loved his mum, Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4: I mean they were pretty much acceptable, the two of them.
Speaker 4: She could sort of appreciate him for what he was,
Speaker 4: you know, because he was a really intelligent kid, but
Speaker 4: being you know, a bit eccentric probably is the word.
Speaker 1: This is how Sally remembers that time in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 5: The Owen story is a long story. It goes right
Speaker 5: back to when he was little. I don't know, he
Speaker 5: probably would have been in year four and I was
Speaker 5: in year five, maybe even younger, year three and year four,
Speaker 5: so little you know, we're talking nine and ten. Mum
Speaker 5: had met a new guy and he came to live
Speaker 5: with us very quickly. We hadn't met him, and we'd
Speaker 5: been at our dads for the weekend. And I remember
Speaker 5: Mum coming and picking U up from the train station
Speaker 5: and she said, I've just got something to tell you kids.
Speaker 5: I said what, and she said, Oh, We've got a
Speaker 5: guy who's coming to come and live with us. And
Speaker 5: I said okay. And I was a bit shocked by that,
Speaker 5: and I didn't really understand it either. I didn't quite
Speaker 5: get it, but as I grew up and learned. He
Speaker 5: walked out on his wife and his three kids, and
Speaker 5: he needed somewhere to go, and Mum had been on
Speaker 5: a couple of dates with him, so she being my
Speaker 5: mum the person that she is, it's Ray and he
Speaker 5: came and lived with us. And he walked in with
Speaker 5: an added ass bag. That's all he brought with him,
Speaker 5: one bag. And I remember Owen and I walked straight out.
Speaker 9: We didn't even speak to him. He was in the kitchen.
Speaker 5: We went and sat on the trampoline and just jumped
Speaker 5: on the trampoline and looked at him through the kitchen
Speaker 5: window and thinking, this is really bizarre. There's a guy
Speaker 5: in our house we've never met before. Anyway, Mum later
Speaker 5: married him, and the problem that stemmed from that was
Speaker 5: that Owen and Ray never got along. So Owen had
Speaker 5: an IQ one shy of being a genius, but he
Speaker 5: was an odd person.
Speaker 9: He had non personality. I was kind of like the.
Speaker 5: Extrovert and he was the introvert. And we were only
Speaker 5: seventeen months apart, so we did everything together. We had
Speaker 5: matching BMX bikes and everyone used to think we were twins.
Speaker 5: And I remember Owen and Ray struggling a lot to
Speaker 5: get along. Ray used to get cranky because I remember
Speaker 5: one day, the law mol wouldn't start and he couldn't
Speaker 5: work out how to get the lawmolder to start, and
Speaker 5: I walked out and tinkered with the spark plug and
Speaker 5: got it to start, and Ray actually got really mad
Speaker 5: at him. Ray and Owen's relationship. He actually gave my
Speaker 5: Mum an ultimatum, and he said, either he goes or
Speaker 5: I go, And so Mum sent Owen to live with
Speaker 5: my dad.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, Marian and Ray's marriage was on the rails.
Speaker 1: By nineteen eighty nine, they were divorced. Once again. Marian
Speaker 1: was single, and she didn't like it. Here's Janice again.
Speaker 2: She was very devastated. I guess, yeah, she was a
Speaker 2: bit older and wiser, but than what she had been
Speaker 2: possibly twenty years before. But when she'd broken up with Johnny.
Speaker 12: But.
Speaker 2: It was tough. It was tough on her and she
Speaker 2: was restless again. She just didn't know what her future held,
Speaker 2: and that's when she started talking about moving out of
Speaker 2: New South Wales. She did eventually move to Queensland.
Speaker 1: Marian soon settled into a new life on the Gold Coast.
Speaker 1: She scored a position at the exclusive TSS, the Southport School.
Speaker 6: For a time, everything was going well. Her friend Bob
Speaker 6: came up from Jerngong to see her.
Speaker 11: She seemed very very happy teaching those kids, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: But by nineteen ninety seven something was unsettling Marian.
Speaker 2: She was stressed.
Speaker 6: Her passion for her job was crumbling.
Speaker 2: She was stressed and she was short tempered. I guess
Speaker 2: that generosity of spirit was rather dented.
Speaker 6: There were unpleasant rumors about how she handled her students
Speaker 6: and talk of a falling out with certain staff members.
Speaker 1: In episode three, we took a deeper dive into what
Speaker 1: was going on at Marian's workplace, the Southport School. At
Speaker 1: the time. She abruptly quit in nineteen ninety seven. From
Speaker 1: the recollections of former colleagues and parents of former students,
Speaker 1: it appeared that Marian had at first enjoyed working at
Speaker 1: the school, but in nineteen ninety seven her relationships with
Speaker 1: some other staff members were becoming rocky. Having won Queensland's
Speaker 1: Teacher of the Year award in nineteen ninety six, there
Speaker 1: were now unpleasant rumors circulating behind her back and suggests
Speaker 1: she was having mood swings that caused tension in the classroom.
Speaker 5: It seemed that there was a little bit of a
Speaker 5: tall Poppy syndrome going on with the new teachers that
Speaker 5: had come in, where they were trying to knock her
Speaker 5: down a peg, is my take on it. From what
Speaker 5: she had told me, so, I'd be over there for
Speaker 5: dinner and she'd be in tears telling me that these
Speaker 5: people had said horrible things about her, and she was
Speaker 5: not in a very happy place.
Speaker 6: We also learned that in her personal life, Marian was lonely.
Speaker 6: It was in this episode that we first mentioned a pilot,
Speaker 6: the father of a boy in her class, whom Marian
Speaker 6: apparently had a crush on. Since then, we've established that
Speaker 6: this pilot did exist, but there was never anything between them,
Speaker 6: only a fleeting, one sided attraction on Marian's behalf. We
Speaker 6: also learned that Marian was, for a short time in
Speaker 6: a relationship with the school maintenance man, Greg Edwards. However,
Speaker 6: as we later discovered, this was no passion at romance,
Speaker 6: more of a friendly companionship which had fizzled out well
Speaker 6: before Marion decided to take a trip overseas. Friends recalled
Speaker 6: she was restless and needing a change. However, she did
Speaker 6: not speak of anyone special in her life, but seemed
Speaker 6: excited when she suddenly decided to upend her life with
Speaker 6: her job, sell her house, put her belongings into storage,
Speaker 6: and take a trip overseas. This is Marion's longtime friend
Speaker 6: Janice White, and I actually spoke.
Speaker 2: To her night or two before she left, and she
Speaker 2: was excited. She was planning on going to places where
Speaker 2: Jane Austen had lived and all of that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: She was very excited and very happy about going overseas.
Speaker 2: I must have been. I was surprised when she told
Speaker 2: me she'd sold the house. Well, when you go overseas,
Speaker 2: but you don't usually sell your property before you go.
Speaker 2: You know that she was planning on staying a while.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Joe said, that surprised me, but I guess
Speaker 2: it's something I wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: Janice and marian sisters all remember receiving postcards or letters
Speaker 1: from Marian while she was away.
Speaker 8: I think she enjoyed traveling, and she definitely wanted to
Speaker 8: go on the Orient Express. You know, that was a
Speaker 8: long held desire of hers. I don't know if she
Speaker 8: was going by herself or she was traveling with someone.
Speaker 8: She never mentioned anyone else, so I assumed she was
Speaker 8: going by herself. The last time I heard from her
Speaker 8: was the birthday card that I got from her. The
Speaker 8: one that my elderly relatives got was dated the seventh
Speaker 8: of July, and she seems to have sent a lot
Speaker 8: of letters to people around that day.
Speaker 10: Seventh of July nineteen ninety seven. Brighton, Sussex, Dearest Nony,
Speaker 10: Margie and dub hope you're all well. Thinking of you
Speaker 10: as I passed this interesting little shop, having a wonderful
Speaker 10: time exploring, and I'm finally beginning to relax because of
Speaker 10: all my luggage. I decided to hire a little car
Speaker 10: and have been rather brave motoring carefully around this gorgeous place.
Speaker 10: I'm shortly after Amsterdam and the Orient Express on the
Speaker 10: fifteenth of July. Lots of love, Marion. Please give love
Speaker 10: to sister d and hope she's home safely after a
Speaker 10: wonderful trip.
Speaker 1: What about your sisters? Did they have any other contact
Speaker 1: with Marion? Postcards as well or anything that.
Speaker 8: They Yes, I think they probably all got cards as well.
Speaker 8: My postcard and present came from Unbridge. Well, my elderly
Speaker 8: relatives postcard came from Sussex. I knew she was going
Speaker 8: away in ninety seven. She was looking forward to going
Speaker 8: overseas and she had a ticket to go on the
Speaker 8: Orient Express and she was very excited about that.
Speaker 4: Yes, I wasn't expecting at sea forever.
Speaker 6: Very few people hung on to Marion's postcards or even
Speaker 6: thought to. They all presumed they'd see her again, although
Speaker 6: Sally has kept too. The first is from Alfreston, a
Speaker 6: scenic village in East Sussex, about one one hundred and
Speaker 6: thirty kilometers south of London. Marion has not written the
Speaker 6: date on the card, and the postmark is far too
Speaker 6: faded to read. It features a picture of some little
Speaker 6: shops in the village center. One of them is called
Speaker 6: Sally's Craft and Gift Center.
Speaker 10: He's an excerpt, Dear Sal, thinking of you as I
Speaker 10: explored this little shop on my tour to the historic
Speaker 10: village of Alfriston, and feeling much more relaxed. The strawberries
Speaker 10: tastes divine, and so do the raspberries. Lots of love
Speaker 10: to you both, Mum.
Speaker 6: The second postcard is a photo of London's famous Tower Bridge.
Speaker 6: It has a postmark dated July nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 10: Dearest Sal and Chris, hope you are well and I
Speaker 10: guess eagerly looking forward to your snowy trip. Have a
Speaker 10: great time. I really quite love just being a tourist.
Speaker 10: I decided to experience the Tube, travel around London to
Speaker 10: see the sites, and of course drop into Harrod's David Jones,
Speaker 10: move over. What a shop, So crowded and so much stuff.
Speaker 10: Lots of love, Mum.
Speaker 6: In all of the correspondence she sent, there's no sign
Speaker 6: that Marian is unhappy or about to cut off contact
Speaker 6: with their family and disappear. She seemed full of life,
Speaker 6: enjoying the sites, but still keeping track of what her
Speaker 6: loved ones were doing at home. As Marian indicated in
Speaker 6: her postcard. Sally and Chris took a holiday to Australia's
Speaker 6: Snowy Mountains in July nineteen ninety seven.
Speaker 7: In a domino effect, the terrost lodgers had collapsed on
Speaker 7: each other, dumping tons of rubble on the victims.
Speaker 6: It was this trip that prompted Marian to make a
Speaker 6: phone call home.
Speaker 7: This rescue effort could hardly have faced tougher conditions. Freezing, cold,
Speaker 7: dark and dangerous.
Speaker 6: On Wednesday in July thirty, nineteen ninety seven, at eleven
Speaker 6: thirty five pm, rain, melting snow and a leaking water
Speaker 6: Maine caused a catastrophic landslide at the Threadboat Ski Resort.
Speaker 6: Two ski launchers were destroyed, Eighteen people were killed.
Speaker 7: Any survivors had endured freezing temperatures overnight, hopes of finding
Speaker 7: anyone alive of fading.
Speaker 6: News of the disaster was beamed around the world. Marian
Speaker 6: in England became worried for Sally and Chris, who was
Speaker 6: skiing in the area. The couple was safe, but Marian
Speaker 6: didn't know that, so she called their Gold Coast home
Speaker 6: and left a message on the answering machine.
Speaker 2: I just got word what happened at Threadboat. Wanted to
Speaker 2: make sure you and Chris were okay.
Speaker 5: This was the thirty first of July and she said, Oh,
Speaker 5: we've just heard word over here about the Threadbow disaster.
Speaker 9: What's happened at Threadbow.
Speaker 5: I was just worried for you and Chris and making
Speaker 5: sure you're okay.
Speaker 6: She called back the next day, August first, and had
Speaker 6: a long chat with Sally.
Speaker 5: She said, I'm having a fabulous time. I'm just having
Speaker 5: some SCons and tea with some little old ladies that
Speaker 5: I've met, and I'm having a really nice time. But
Speaker 5: I just thought i'd touch base. I wanted to make
Speaker 5: sure you and Chris were okay.
Speaker 6: Marian said she was in Tunbridge Wells now known as
Speaker 6: Royal Tonbridge Wells in Kent, England. The payphone she was
Speaker 6: using kept dropping out, so as she had to ring
Speaker 6: back several times. Sallie told her about her ski holiday
Speaker 6: and how she'd found her wedding dress. Marian spoke of
Speaker 6: her adventures in England. She revealed that she'd postponed her
Speaker 6: plans to ride the Orient Express and said that she
Speaker 6: wouldn't be sending as much correspondence as she wanted to
Speaker 6: have a holiday. In the days that followed, Sallie turned
Speaker 6: detective and made some disturbing discoveries. She found out that
Speaker 6: Marian or someone using her passport, had returned to Australia
Speaker 6: on August the second, nineteen ninety seven. That's just one
Speaker 6: day after Marion's phone call from Tunbridge Wells in the UK.
Speaker 6: Sally called Marian's bank and found out her account had
Speaker 6: been accessed throughout August and September almost every day for
Speaker 6: three and a half weeks. Five thousand dollars had been
Speaker 6: drained from her account. Fall up it amounted to around
Speaker 6: eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Sally's next stop was the police station to officially report
Speaker 1: her mother, Marian Barter missing. The following statement was taken
Speaker 1: by Senior Constable Graham Childs at Byron Bay on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: October twenty second, at two thirty seven pm. It is
Speaker 1: important to note that this was not listed as a
Speaker 1: missing person file, but simply as an occurrence.
Speaker 14: The next of kin is concerned that the person of interest,
Speaker 14: who is her mother, has traveled to England and has
Speaker 14: not returned to Australia. On the second of August nineteen
Speaker 14: ninety seven, and did not contact her upon return. Members
Speaker 14: of the family have received postcards dated the thirtieth of
Speaker 14: August nineteen ninety seven from England. Inquiries with the persons
Speaker 14: of interest bank indicated that she had acted on her
Speaker 14: account a number of times, including several transactions at Byron Bay.
Speaker 14: The latest transaction was the sum of eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 14: by telegraphic transfer, possibly to an overseas account. A stop
Speaker 14: has been placed on the account with a narrative for
Speaker 14: the person of interest to contact her daughter as a
Speaker 14: matter of urgency. At this stage, it is not planned
Speaker 14: to list the person of interest as missing, as it
Speaker 14: is believed she is capable of behavior of this nature.
Speaker 14: It is not unusual for her to not contact members
Speaker 14: of the family. She is a three times divorced woman
Speaker 14: in her fifties, and one possible scenario for her behavior
Speaker 14: is that she has returned to Australia with a companion
Speaker 14: and has transferred the funds to England to purchase a
Speaker 14: property there, with the view to move to in Endland.
Speaker 1: Sally called each of Marian's friends and loved ones to
Speaker 1: find out if they'd heard from her. News of her
Speaker 1: disappearance was met with disbelief. Here's janet Oma day.
Speaker 8: But to me, she was just going on a holiday.
Speaker 4: She didn't mention who she was going to see or whatever.
Speaker 4: So it was just a shock.
Speaker 8: When she supposedly came back that she disappeared.
Speaker 1: Is it something that to you seems completely out of
Speaker 1: character for her?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: Absolutely.
Speaker 8: She was so passionate about her family.
Speaker 1: You know, she was very close to her mom and dad.
Speaker 1: She talked about her mom and dad a lot.
Speaker 8: And you know, of course Sally.
Speaker 1: Marian's parents, who both now died, were traumatized. Her father Jack,
Speaker 1: sought help from the Salvation Army's Family Tracing Service. From here,
Speaker 1: the story of Marian's disappearance becomes confusing, filed with setbacks,
Speaker 1: mungling and bizarre breakthroughs. The conflicting information that's been fed
Speaker 1: to the family has splintered them.
Speaker 6: So that's the first of our condensed catch up episodes.
Speaker 6: Now on to catch up episode number two. If you
Speaker 6: knew Marian or have any information about her or her whereabouts,
Speaker 6: we'd love to hear from you. Our website is sevennews
Speaker 6: dot com dot au forward slash The Lady Vanishes, where
Speaker 6: you can also email us. Oh and if you like
Speaker 6: what you're hearing. Don't forget to subscribe, Please rate and
Speaker 6: review our series. It helps new listeners find us. Presenter
Speaker 6: and executive producer Alison Sandy, presenter and investigative journalist Brian Seymour,
Speaker 6: producer and writer Sally Eels. Sound design Mark Wright, transcripts
Speaker 6: Charlie Dally Watkins, graphics Jason Blandford. The theme and much
Speaker 6: of the music by Nicholas Gasparini at the Darkpiano dot com.
Speaker 6: This is a Seven News production